“Wipe out the entire Level Ten with a flick of his sleeve?” The notion echoed around the gathering like a bad joke no one wished to claim. What kind of godlike strength would that demand? It’s unthinkable!
“Enough with the bragging, boy!” bellowed an elder from the Infinite Soul Demon Sect, his voice rough as grinding tombstones. “A mysterious protector who can obliterate a whole heaven with a shrug?!”
He jabbed a claw-thin finger toward Jared. “Do you take us for idiots?! Summon this backer of yours right now! I’ll slap the guts out of him in one strike, and watch him cough them onto the floor!”
The elder’s tirade hissed through the cold night air, disbelief curdling into raw fury. Hearing the man brag about knocking Arthur’s guts loose, Jared merely chuckled, a low ripple that broke into bright, careless laughter.
“Hahaha! You’re so dead…” Jared sang, shaking his head with mock pity. Jared had not even finished the taunt when, far beyond mortal sight, a silver pin-prick of light streaked through the void—silent, swift, almost imaginary.
No sentinel sensed it. No formation alarmed. The ranting elder stiffened mid-breath, eyes glazing over before his body toppled like a felled statue. He hit the ground with a dead thud, lifeless, noiseless.
A hush gripped the terrace. Every spectator, warrior, alchemist, servant, stood frozen, mouths parted in wordless shock. Even Sheldon and Linden stared blankly, their minds scrambling for an answer.
None of them could fathom how the elder had died so suddenly, slain by a whisper of light no one had seen, and no one could trace.
They exchanged bewildered glances. Could this really be the invisible hand of the master who stands behind Jared?
The field felt empty—no pressure, no aura—yet something had just clawed a life away before their eyes.
“I take it you believe me now?” Jared asked, a cold smile skating across his lips. Anyone who had ever boasted they’d beat the crap out of Arthur never lived long enough to brag again.
“Master, don’t listen to him!” another elder barked, stepping in beside Sheldon. “I inspected that elder just now. Heart failure, sheer misfortune. No hidden master stirred a finger!”
“I see… You still doubt it,” Jared said, voice clipped in contempt. “Go on, insult the one who shields me. Forget him… I can butcher you myself. Want a demonstration?”
The elder’s mouth opened, yet only a strangled syllable escaped.
“Enough!” Sheldon snapped, thrusting an arm across his subordinate’s chest. Rage still simmered inside him, yet the remnant of reason pressed a warning on him.
He was in bad shape. His face had swollen into a grotesque mask, demonic essence churned, veins of black fire crawling beneath the skin. Every breath rattled against hidden wounds that threatened to burst open.
Across from him, Jared floated in the air, aura long and even, power unfathomable, the earlier strike still echoing in everyone’s bones. If he lingered, vengeance would remain a dream. More likely his corpse would be today’s final offering.
Worse, Linden, newly rested, was already knitting his strength back together.
I must be patient. I will repay the humiliation today someday in the future!
“Jared Chance!” Sheldon howled through cracked, swollen lips. “I mark you! Until life’s end, one of us falls for today’s disgrace!”
Those last words tore free through gritted teeth, swollen with humiliation and venom.
Too embarrassed to stay another heartbeat, he whirled around. A crooked streak of demon light wobbled skyward, racing toward the Infinite Soul Demon Sect headquarters.
With their leader gone, the demon ranks shattered like rotten dam boards. Weapons clattered onto blood-soaked stone as they fled in a black tide, the once-towering menace dissolved into aimless panic.
On the Mystic Sky Sword Sect’s side, Linden watched the rout with the weary eyes of a man who has seen too many wars.
He glanced at Jared, still alone in the sky, and a sigh too soft for words passed through him.
He issued no order to pursue. His disciples, bloodied, spent, grieving, needed rest, not another mile of slaughter.
Linden studied Jared—the stranger who had materialized out of nowhere, slapped Sheldon clear across the battlefield, and single-handedly reversed the tide.
Jared’s loyalties were a mystery. His strength, unsettling. Every breath the young man took pressed against Linden’s chest like the promise of another storm.
Charging after Sheldon this instant might win a token victory, yet Linden sensed fresh calamity lurking behind any rash pursuit. Worse, the more he replayed Jared’s so-called evidence, the more each scrap unraveled, thread by thread, beneath sober scrutiny.
Jared finally turned from the fleeing demon army. He offered Linden a casual salute, as though they were equals meeting at a tea house instead of on smoking ruin.
“Mr. Cloudridge, the skirmish ends here. After tonight, the Demon Sect will lack the strength to trouble the Mystic Sky Sword Sect for quite some time. I’ll be taking my leave.”
A clean exit felt wise. After all, the night’s carnage, carefully orchestrated by Jared, had bled the sect white.
“Wait!” Linden’s voice cracked through the drifting ash.
